"Frozen dessert"is a generic term that has been applied to a wide variety of products including ice cream, frozen yogurt, frozen custard, ice milk, sherbet, frozen dairy confections and non-dairy dessert. There are two primary sources of calories in frozen desserts: fat and sugar. While fat contributes most of the calories in typical premium ice creams, sugar also contributes a substantial portion of the calories. Hence, reduction of sugar in frozen desserts is an effective way to reduce the calorie content of such desserts. Further, sugar has been linked to a variety of health problems including hypertension, coronary heart disease, arterial sclerosis and dental caries. Sugar or sucrose also increases blood glucose and insulin levels and therefore can be hazardous to people suffering from diabetes. Therefore, the reduction of sugar in one's diet may have health benefits beyond the reduction of calories and weight control.
Typical ice creams and frozen desserts are sweetened with sucrose or a combination of sucrose and corn syrup solids. The combination of sucrose and corn syrup solids (CSS) is generally considered to be the optimum sweetener with regard to taste profile and important properties such as texture, hardness, melting rate and overrun.
The present invention is directed toward reducing the caloric content of frozen desserts by eliminating the addition of sucrose and corn syrup solids to these products. However the elimination of sucrose and corn syrup solids has proven to be problematic and the food industry's quest for adequate non-sucrose/CSS substitutes for use in frozen desserts has not, to date, been very successful.
Generally speaking, any low calorie substitute for sucrose/CSS normally includes two components-an "intense" non-caloric sweetener and an alternative "bulk sweetener". The intense sweeteners such as aspartame, saccharin or acesulfame K provide a relatively high "sweetness equivalent" to sucrose/CSS with little or no added calories. Intense sweeteners have at least two drawbacks. First, intense sweeteners can impart an unpleasant aftertaste even though they are far sweeter per unit weight than sucrose, corn syrup solids and alternative bulk sweeteners. Second, intense sweeteners fail to contribute the body and bulk to the frozen dessert contributed by the sucrose and corn syrup solids.
The "bulk sweetener" or "bulking agent" is used to replace the volume and texture supplied by the sucrose/CSS with substantially less calories than sucrose/CSS. Preferably, the bulk sweetener or bulking agent will also contribute some sweetness equivalent as well and the combination of the intense and bulk sweetener will provide the sweetness equivalent of sucrose/CSS.
Currently available "bulk" sweeteners include monomeric sugar alcohols such as mannitol, sorbitol or xylitol or dimeric sugar alcohols such as isomalt, lactitol or maltitol. Other alternative bulk sweeteners include polydextrose and maltodextrin. However, all of these alternative bulk sweeteners, either alone or in combination, also fail to provide the texture, taste and other qualities demanded by today's consumers. Specifically, known combinations of sugar alcohols and combinations of sugar alcohols with polydextrose and/or maltodextrin all provide a product that is inferior in certain essential properties, namely, taste, texture, hardness, melting rate and "overrun".
Overrun is a measure of the ability of a whipped dessert product to increase in volume during the whipping or mixing process. For example, a product that doubles in volume (i.e. one gallon to two gallons) is said to achieve 100% overrun. Conventional ice cream products, i.e. products sweetened with sucrose/CSS, may achieve a batch freezer overrun in excess of 100%. Non-sucrose desserts made with polydextrose, maltodextrin and sorbitol may achieve batch freezer overruns of less than 100% (92% is a typical value). The lower overruns of the non-sucrose desserts lowers the effective yield because whipped frozen desserts are sold by volume and not by weight.
For example, polydextrose, maltodextrin and sorbitol are combined as the bulk sweetener in several commercially available products. For example, a product containing 5.4% fat, 12% milk solids (non-fat), 9% polydextrose, 2.5% maltodextrin, 3% sorbitol, 0.5% stabilizer, 0.04% aspartame and 0.6% vanilla exhibits a batch freezer overrun of 92% and therefore is more costly to manufacture per unit volume and is higher in caloric density than a competitive product with a 100% overrun. Further, the polydextrose/maltodextrin/sorbitol product was found to be approximately 40% harder than conventional ice creams and therefore less "spoonable". Difficulty in obtaining the product from the container causes frustration to the consumer and makes the consumer less likely to purchase the product a second time. In addition, the formulation was more difficult to mix and did not exhibit good mixing properties. Further, the above product was more difficult to mix and melted at a rate 40% faster than conventional ice creams.
By way of another example, a combination of polydextrose and lactitol was used as a sucrose/CSS replacement in a reduced-fat frozen dessert formulation. The polydextrose/lactitol formulation included 5.4% fat, 12% milk solids (non-fat), 9% polydextrose, 9% lactitol, 0.5% stabilizer, 0.04% aspartame and 0.6% vanilla. The polydextrose/lactitol formulation was found to be much softer than the polydextrose/maltodextrin/sorbitol product discussed above but still 10% harder than conventional ice cream and therefore slightly less "spoonable" than conventional ice creams. Further, the melting rate of the polydextrose/lactitol formulation was 40% faster than conventional ice creams.
Thus, both the polydextrose/maltodextrin/sorbitol combination has proven to be less than satisfactory bulk sweetener alternatives and the polydextrose/lactitol combination proved superior in many respects to the polydextrose/maltodextrin/sorbitol combination.
Hydrogenated starch hydrolysate (HSH) has been used as a sweetener in chewing gum and various candy products. Hydrogenated starch hydrolysates are primarily prepared by the controlled catalytic hydrogenation of corn syrup. The resulting hydrogenated starch hydrolysates are mixtures of monomeric, dimeric and polymeric sugar alcohols. The ratios of these different sugar alcohols provide different hydrogenated starch hydrolysates with different properties. A hydrogenated starch hydrolysate made from a 32-36 dextrose equivalent corn syrup will have an average molecular weight similar to that of regular corn syrup solids. A hydrogenated starch hydrolysate made from 70 dextrose equivalent corn syrup will result in a product that is approximately 50% maltitol and is often referred to as a "maltitol syrup".
Accordingly, there is a need for a bulk sweetener, in either the form of one compound or a combination of compounds, that can be combined with an intense sweetener as an alternative to sucrose/CSS. The alternative bulk sweetener should provide the taste and texture qualities demanded by today's consumer and further should result in a spoonable product that is easy to mix, provides acceptable overrun and further that melts at a rate similar to that of conventional ice creams, if not slower.